and the winner is...

Aunt Toni! Congrats to you (see answers below). The flowering tea is on its way... I had this for the first time in Japan last year and its both an aesthetic and culinary experience! anyone want to claim a consolation prize? Colleen, you should have posted....

sledding

The middle school near our house has an awesome hill for sledding. The snow was packed just right so it was a fast ride down, and a slippery climb back up! We started off on the "bunny hill" and worked our way up to the big hill. I thought that Bee and Frankie would be scared, but they just kept asking for more! I have to learn how to steer a bit better because we kept cutting sharply to the right, but the heels in my boots, I've decided, have good stopping power! Bee even went down by herself, crashed landed, and came up laughing. I was so proud of her! Go Bee!

here are the girlies going up and down the hill...



and here is bee going all by herself!

snow family

Yesterday we got about 5 inches of perfect snow man snow! We started off making a snowman and ended up with a snow family, which Bee declared was "snow frankie, snow bee, and snow koompa!" The funniest part was when koompa sniffed the snow dogs butt. Frankie just told me when she grows up she wants to be a football player, a doggie or a doctor. I love her mind!

OK, any takers on the quiz? How about if i send a prize to the winner? Lets see, Bee says to give a pack of gum for the prize, but Im willing to up the ante to a box of flowering jasmine tea or homemade dark chocolate oatmeal cookies, your pick!

chilly running

Well the forecast the other morning was for freezing fog. What the
heck is freezing fog? Scott dared the elements and went running in
it. He survived, and sported a really cool set of eyebrows and lashes
to boot! They reminded me of when I used to take
Koompa running in the winter and her whiskers would grow icicles!

Well, we are back from our trek to Wichita as well. More on that trip
later, but lets play a matching game first. Which slogan matches with
each city/state? We had some good laughs as we read the billboards,
water towers (i.e.. onions), and what not where these sayings were
posted. Lets just say that bought us a good hundred miles.

A. Crossroads of Opportunity
B. Crossroads of America
C. A level above
D. Something for everybody
E. The fine art of living well

1. Blue Springs, MO
2. El Dorado, KS
3. Effingham, IL
4. Terre Haute, IN
5. Indiana (the state)

Im still laughing at the billboards. So, I bet you can begin to
imagine our 17 hours (1 way) in the car together. I will tell you
one other weird factoid. Its almost exactly 250 miles from here to
Indianapolis, 250 from Indy to St. Louis, 250 from St.Louis to Kansas
City, and 200 from KC to Wichita. It was nice to have such evenly
spaced cities!

Once we get some quiz takers, I will post the answers.

I hope everyone is having a merry christmas... and get ready for a great 2008!

changing faces...

I saw this on the new york times and thought it was super cool... so anyone out there want to make a new years resolution with me that we will take our picture everyday next year and make a movie. I think I will do it for Bee and Frankie. How am I gonna remember to take a pic everyday??????

see the article at New York Times


Living My Life Faster - 8 years of JK's Daily Photo Project from c71123 on Vimeo.

You know it tastes good when...

...Bee says to Frankie, "Frankie, can I lick your face?" LOL. I guess Koompa has taught her well. We made dark chocolate brownies yesterday and that was what bee said after I let them lick the bowl. It was a new recipe because I usually make brownies from unsweetened baking squares and I didnt have any yesterday so we used dark chocolate cocoa powder. they werent as dense as Im used to, but quite tastey. Tell me this, though: Why does the batter always taste better than the final baked product??????

amazon bean soup

two thumbs up for the amazon bean soup. It was really good and not that hard to make, although i did have to let it simmer for a time on sunday then "age" in the fridge two days till last night. I did not serve it in the breadbowl as advertised, but we had some delicious italian bread, toasted, on the side. here is a picture of it halfway made. After the squash, carrots, onions and garlic sauteed in olive oil, with some thai red pepper paste, i then added water and simmered till it got soft. Then, I pureed half of it, added the remaining chunky veggies, and added garbanzo beans. then it sat for 2 days in the fridge, and then I added a whole bunch of spinach till it was slightly wilted. yum-o-matic!!!!

We have stuck to our menu eating the salmon on sunday and the soft tacos on monday...more on those later.

Keeping it honest

OK, after saying we were going to get out of our cooking rut, we were terrible last week, with one exception... so Im going to try to keep up honest by posting a week's worth of supper menus. So, if you have other ideas that would be great. In the mean time I will report back on whether we cooked *and* ate it!!!

Here are the meals:
Salmon roasted with tomatillos, cilantro, garlic and lemon, with mushroom risotto and spinach salad
Broccoli rabe, white bean and fontina cheese pasta
Pasta and sauce with roasted green beans and red peppers on the side
Amazon bean soup with winter squash in bread bowls
Roasted vegetable gallettes (kind like a wheat flour pastry crust)
soft tacos of some sort
pizza (what is a week w/o pizza I ask?)

happy eating!

cow fields

I was running through the cow field's today by MSU (my absolute totally favorite run). Its a loop of about 9 miles, and you hitch a left on dirt road off of college road to cross through the fields. The sun was just coming up. It was cold and crisp (17 degrees to be exact) and the snow in the fields was pristine white, untouched except well, by the cows and their ways. I was about 5 miles into the run, and just listened to "eye of the tiger" followed by "semi-charmed life" (great running songs - scott takes care of my ipod for me). So I stopped, made a snow angel and wrote " Hi scott! Love Angie" in nice big letters. Im hoping scott sees it tomorrow on his run, and that the cows dont trek over where I was. Ive only ever seen one other person running in the cow fields. Lets hope his name isnt scott, too!!

I should let scott post about this. He got to go out to dinner last night with Winston Scott, a space shuttle astronaut who is receiving an honorary doctorate from MSU this weekend. I was supposed to come too, but our babysitter didnt show up, and when i was finally about to reach her it was too late and she was confused about the day anyway (she thought it was tomorrow). I was so bummed. I cant tell you how excited I was to go to the dinner last night. Well, my consolation prize is that he is going to send me an autographed picture when he gets back home to florida. LOL. On the brighter side of things, staying home last night was a blast as the girls and I curled up on the couch and watched frosty the snowman, and the house is nice and clean (since we cleaned it for the sitter!).

Going, going, gone...

that is the lamb roast is going to that fine couple from Union Street. Just let us know when you are coming. I promise to do some internet research so I know what I am doing when I cook the darn thing. Actually, I will search youtube for movies on cooking lamb roast. I love youtube. No promises for how it will turn, but I do promise the company will be good.

I *thought* about making tamale pie last night (with black beans and roasted veggies). Does that count for getting us out of our rut? (I will admit to making pasta with sauce and broccoli rabe on the side. I wont admit to how many days a week we eat that...)

Bee's movie

for some reason Bee's movie from yesterday morning didnt add. So Im trying again here....

as typical, the girls were up *before* the crack of dawn, marching around, reading, playing, you name it. I guess it doesnt help that they have a mom who gets up at 5. Sleeping till 6 is sleeping in late around here. Poor scotty! So, we took two pre-dawn movies to get your day started! Next time you're feeling a little sleepy and cant get to your cup o java, just grab your recorder and march around like frankie. Sorry the movie is so dark - but, well, it was dark out here. Guarunteed you and yours will be AWAKE! OK, so now Im going to try the new blogger feature of uploading video directly to this site. hope it works, or else you will have to wait till tonight for me to upload these videos on youtube.

food update and this and that

we ordered in chinese...

However, to our credit, I did not order my usual bean curd delight. Instead got broccoli, eggplant and tofu, and scott ordered something new too, but he placed the order so I dont know what his was called. I do remember it had broccoli in it because I snatched some from his plate. (thanks Scott!). In other news, we got a dusting of snow last night, and on friday we are having dinner with a space shuttle astronaut. suggestions for small talk? Oh, so I guess that i means Im not cooking on friday either!

another rut

about a year ago I posted about what a rut we were in for suppers. We we are back in that rut. So, Im making this post to motivate me to try some new meals. Now, it is true that i have tried some new things lately... but truth be told what i have tried is variations on salmon. I could probably eat salmon 3 days a week and be happy but I dont think the rest of the family could or that is even a globally sustainable practice. I do have an organic lamb roast in the freezer, but seeing as how Bee and I are not big meat eaters, Im saving this for when Kevin comes to visit. Heck, or anyone else who likes lamb want to come visit? I wont have any idea what Im doing cooking the darn thing, but you will get some lamb out of it!

OK, I dont know what is for supper... but i promise to post a few times over the next few weeks on some new recipes.... and of course Im wide open to suggestions!

Cozy weekend

its been cold and snowy, icey turned raining. So, we had fun with hot
chocolate and christmas decorations! Actually we are heading to
Seussical at the wharton center. Hopefully the girls will love it!